Doctrines of al-ajal al-maḥtūm and al-ajal al-makhrūm or al-ajal al-muʿallaq: the problem of fixed and variable ajal (terms/lifespans) in contemporary Shi‘ite thought ABSTRACT The dual concepts of a ‘fixed term’--ajal maḥtūm--and a changeable one--variously termed ajal makhrūm or ajal muʿallaq, are crucial to concepts of divine justice (al-ʿadl) in both Zaydi and Twelver Shiʿite theology. Naturally, these are tied to derivative, variant and distinct theological schema and exegetical trends in Qur’ānic tafsīr posited to explain the dynamic relation between al-qaḍāʾ wa al-qadar and human will (irādah) vis-à-vis divine knowledge/omniscience (ʿilm allāh) without impinging upon justice. Although he ostensibly adopted the theoretical framework of his friend and contemporary Muḥammad Bāqir al-Ṣadr in the formulation described as ‘al-sunnan al-tārīkhīyah’ as a means for reconciling doctrine, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallah’s concept was considerably less nuanced and diverged significantly in areas, including the case of suicide. Within the realm of both ancient and contemporary ʿilm al-kalām a hermeneutically consistent expression of the doctrine of variable ajal is a philosophical challenge of grand proportions. This study traces and explores the salient features and contentions of major interpretive trends. At the practical level, the particular interpretation and credo adopted bear a decisive impact on imperatives for action that factored directly in the thinking of Abu al-Ḥasan al-Khoei and Muḥammad Bāqir al-Ṣadr, as well as Faḍlallah to a lesser extent. Source material includes recent commentary on the subjects by a younger generation of scholars including al-sayyid al-ʿalāmah Munīr al-Khabbāz and explication by sheikh Muḥammadī al-Bāmiyānī of the Kash al-Murād fī Tajrīd al-Iʿtiqād of al-Ṭūsī and the gloss of al-Ḥillī. Significant part of this paper is based on an original, unpublished interview conducted by the author with Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallah on the topic, before his death, in which the sayyid came close to explicitly rejecting the concept of a variable ajal in the service of maintaining the absolute and unitary omniscience of Allah.

(Panel Presentation) In the wake of the Arab Spring, the theoretical writings of leading Arab Islamists have taken on new significance. Such writings are now potentially a source of guidance for practice, and understanding them has taken on a sense of urgency. My paper focuses on two influential yet understudied scholar-activists who have written (and spoken) extensively on Islamic political thought: Ḥākim al-Muṭayrī and Muḥammad ‘Umāra. Yet, in the case of both scholars, little to no academic attention has been afforded these aspects of their work. Ḥākim al-Muṭayrī (b. 1964) is a one-time leader of the Kuwaiti Salafī movement. A relatively conservative scholar, he has authored two imposing monographs over the past decade totaling over a thousand pages, and is often seen on the Al Jazeera Arabic network. His two works, al-Ḥurriyya aw al-Ṭūfān and Taḥrīr al-Insān wa-Tajrīd al-Ṭughyān both focus their attention on the question of political liberty. Muḥammad ‘Umāra (b. 1931) is perhaps the most prolific Islamist thinker alive today. An Azhar graduate, a member of its Islamic Research Academy, and the current editor-in-chief of its monthly academic journal, he has written at great length on the nexus of religion, politics, and governance from an Islamist perspective. Despite his importance and prolificacy, his political ideas have been surprisingly ignored in the secondary scholarship. Though these scholars are not liberals in the widely accepted scholarly sense in use today, they are clearly influenced by contemporary philosophical liberalism. Their project is one of reconstituting Islamic law, which they conceive of as what Brinkley Messick calls a “total discourse,” into one that is thoroughly informed by the “political advances of the West.” My paper explores the writings of these scholars from slightly different angles. In the case of ‘Umara, using some of his most recent writings, it explores the idea of the Sharī‘a’s role in democratic governance and his somewhat radical notion of popular sovereignty as a check on scripture. In the case of al-Muṭayrī, I will analyze his somewhat contradictory approach to the Islamic tradition, which in keeping with his Salafī background, is a thorough-going scripturalism that disregards the later tradition with very few exceptions. Yet at the same time, he makes a forceful case for borrowing from Western traditions in arguing for the centrality of liberty in political thought.

“Islamic democracy” did not seem an oxymoronic theoretical construct to many for the better part of the last decade in contrast to the dominant views that prevailed several decades back. However, the previous optimism about the happy marriage of Islam and democracy does not hold any longer in the aftermath of Islamists’ failures in democratic experiments in the Arab Middle East as well as the seriously tarnished record of Turkish democracy especially since last year. In this paper, which is grounded in the thriving research area of comparative political theory, I will analyze and revisit the normative arguments for an Islamic democracy among the diasporic scholarly communities of Western Muslims (e.g. Sachedina, 2001; Abou el-Fadl, 2004; Khan, 2006; Hashemi, 2009; an-Na’im, 2010). Most of these efforts, commonly gathered under the label of Liberal Islam, formulate their arguments within the philosophical framework of liberalism in their determination to align Islamic ethico-political goals with democratic principles. Along these lines, they borrow a particular vision of liberal democracy as a given without an adequate engagement with several contending versions within the field of democratic theory. This paper seeks to accomplish two major goals. First, by a productive appropriation of the political ontological analyses of the post-foundationalist political thought as recently made by Stephen White (2001) and Oliver Marchart (2007), it sets out to identify the dominant ontological prefigurations of Liberal Islam’s democratic theories. Thus I attempt to show how political ideas are prefigured by certain commitments at the ontological and ethical levels. Consequently, I move on to a normative discussion of whether the theories of Islamic democracy I analyze can effectively reconcile their specific Islamic onto-ethical perspectives with liberalism’s “metaphysical” or “political” versions. Most of the foregoing writings on Islamic democracy has to be revisited in the aftermath of many failures of the so-called “Arab Spring” as well as the uncertainties about the prospects of Turkish democracy under the AKP rule. As the second goal of my paper, I will look at several instances of the Islamic youth opposition against the religiously-oriented authoritarianism in Turkey and Egypt to suggest a more serious theoretical conversation with liberation theologies and their visions of justice and self-government. Eventually, I will probe whether such engagements offer a richer potential to articulate the ethico-political goals of Islam vis-à-vis the prevailing instances of political Islam that have blatantly manifested themselves as a quest for pure power.

This paper seeks to complicate current histories of the Islamic revival through an analysis of supranational Islamic Fiqh academies, a neglected source for modern Islamic legal authority. In particular, this paper examines the histories and resolutions of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) and the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA). This paper argues that the declarations of the IIFA and IFA provide an alternative window into the rise of political Islam and the spread of virtual Islamic discourses. The IIFA is a subsidiary organ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and was created in 1981 to coordinate Islamic legal scholars around the world to address issues facing the umma. The IIFA has hosted 21 meetings, with the most recent in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in November 2013, and has produced over 200 resolutions and statements on an expansive number of topics, ranging from Islamic banking to the threat of Islamophobia. The IFA is an institution of the Muslim World League (MWL) and was established in 1978 with a similar mandate. The IFA is based in Makkah, Saudi Arabia and has hosted over 18 meetings, with one of the most notable being the International Conference on Fatwa and Its Regulations in 2009. Similar to the IIFA, the IFA has considered a broad spectrum of topics, from genetic testing to the sanctity of fatwas on satellite television. This paper explores how the IIFA and IFA have attempted to assert their authority through the traditional religious position of the ulama to define the modern boundaries of the umma, especially to counter jihadists’ claims of Islamic authority. Furthermore, this paper traces how in recent years the discourses of the IIFA and IFA have become virtual through various social medias, such as Twitter and Youtube. Comparing these Islamic legal discourses offers a lens into current debates over lawmaking and prohibiting, especially around the discursive categories of the umma and the practice of takfir, which is the act of declaring someone an apostate. This paper demonstrates how both academies, in conjunction with the OIC and MWL, have increasingly created an international political Islamic sphere that transcends nation state boundaries, yet also paradoxically seeks to legitimize Islamic states. This paper explores this duality, arguing that studying the IIFA and IFA is vital for understanding the relationships between Islamic states, Islamic law and authority, and lived Muslim practices both within and outside of dar al-Islam in the twenty-first century.